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I was writing this morning about the US plan to sign onto the UN declaration that calls for the decriminalization of homosexuality, and the term Apartheid came up in one of the replies to one of the source articles I was using. Some have suggested that “Gay is the new Black,” comparing both as examples of a class of individuals struggling for acceptance. Others chide this comparison claiming that 1) it glooses over the horrors and hardships that African Americans have endured, and 2) equates sexual orientation with race. On that particular argument, I fall somewhere in the middle. I have no desire to diminish the portrayal of the horrific history of African Americans in the US. Not only the era of slavery, but the decdes following the abolition of slavery when people of color continued to be treated legally as less than white Americans in every way. But even the great Civil Rights leader, Coretta Scott King believed that GLBTQ Americans, like African Americans must be treated with equal rights so there is at least some similarity.

But what about this argument that race is not a choice and sexual oriuentation is a choice. Does it matter?

We believe in Freedom of Religious Expression, yet religious affiliation is a choice. Even within the Jewish faith, where it can easily be argued that affiliation is by birth, individuals choose the depth of the participation, and differences exist in the priactice of the faith for different type of Jews.

If sexual orientation is not a choice, but has a scientific basis, then what? We name some genetic traits as defects, while we value others. And even where an in-borm difference exists such as hand-dominance, we don’t require proof of its genetic cause, and today we do not stigmatize left handed people as was historically the case. For the record, there are theories that left-handedness has at least a partial basis in genetics, but the causes are still not fully understood by Science.

Historically, the stigmatization of people based on factors ranging from pure choice to genetic certainty has existed, and over time, many of these preducies have been released or diminished to greater or lesser degrees in many societies. So should it matter if sexual orientation is a choice?  Tell me what you think by commenting on this post.